53 comments:

The plants are our friends. They are not like Blackwood's willows. Now is not this side of paradise. It is not another day in Santa Mira.

Relax. Take a Claritin. The fundamentals? Strong. The numbness? The stupor? Both normal. And to be expected. Chill. After a great pain a feeling does come. A 'Formal' feeling. (very end of the article...)

I am an economic featherweight, so perhaps here is the place to pose a question provoked by the comment thread having to do with the secret ballot, unions, and the wage rate.

I've long been partial to Thomas Paine's argument in his essay Agrarian Justice, that every person born into the world has an equal and inalienable right to the earth (as opposed to improvements made upon the earth), and his proposal in the same essay that this right could be vindicated for the landless by providing a certain sum of money (paid for out of property taxes on the unimproved value of land, a la Henry George) to each citizen upon attaining his or her 21st birthday. (The same result could be approximated by providing each citizen a certain minimum regular income approximating his share of the "rent," rather than a lump sum on the 21st birthday that is liable to get blown on hookers and cocaine.)

My question is this: Wouldn't such a policy have a positive effect on the wage rate, on a naturally justifiable basis? It's generally recognized that when women came into the work force en masse, thereby effectively doubling the supply of labor, this had a depressing effect on wages. If we had a guaranteed minimum income (which may or may not be enough for bare subsistence), wouldn't this make people less desperate to get jobs, and wouldn't this presumably require employers to pay more in wages to get people to work for them? It would naturally raise the wages of those who do choose to get jobs. I am sensible of the fact that employers have an interest in keeping wages low, but wouldn't our economy be a better place, and more closely approximate American ideals of self-sufficiency and equality, if more people worked for themselves rather than employers? A guaranteed minimum income would increase the incentives and the ability of people to gather a little capital and become self-employed.

Good time to que up The Skatalites, the most influential band you never heard of. And good luck getting that sound out of your head. Or this one. The world would be a dreary place without this 40 year institution.

by providing a certain sum of money (paid for out of property taxes on the unimproved value of land, a la Henry George) to each citizen...

Two immediate flaws in your reasoning:

First you have the "fixed income" folks who don't reap an annual cash rent from the land. So, after the sob stories, we'll need to tax the income of producers to make up for it... to give money to people so that they can choose not to be productive.

Second, much of the tax would be passed on to renters. Receive with one hand and pay with the other, while costing the economy the "dead weight" loss of taxation. And, of course, the politicians would have to "wet their beaks" in the process.

Just for the hell of it, and to make my son laugh, for breakfast I ate two of those Halloween lollipops that turn your tongue blood red.

See? 0>

Did you know that if after eating two of those, you let your mouth get all dribbly and then touch your nose with your tongue, it'll leave a pink smear? That's some powerful lollipop dye going on there. I'd wonder if it'll leave a smear all the way through the ol' alimentary canal, except I don't really want to go there.

Anyway, ain't life grand on this beautiful Saturday morning in autumn?

Has anyone seen the new series of commercials for the VW Bouton? They have Brooks Shields as a reporter type claiming that women everywhere are getting pregnant to get a VW Bouton and making statements about couples that are obviously untrue or spun. I'm I nuts to see this as a send up of the average MSN reporter? What do you think?

First you have the 'fixed income' folks who don't reap an annual cash rent from the land."

The guaranteed minimum income idea, which is similar to Milton Friedman's proposal for a "negative income tax," would take the place of things like welfare and social security. Everybody would ultimately be entitled to it, though if you are an "owner" of land your entitlement would presumably be debited from what you're paying in property taxes on the unimproved value of land. This would not mean a large increase on property taxes for homeowners, for whom the value in their property is mostly in the improvements rather than the land. It would presumably mean a significant tax increase on owners of oil fields and holders of valuable urban land. Even the oilman would be entitled to this guaranteed minimum income, but he'd be paying out significantly more to compensate others (through the guaranteed minimum income) for his exclusive possession of such valuable land.

"Second, much of the tax would be passed on to renters."

I do know enough about economics to realize that most economists agree that a peculiarity of the tax on land is that it can not be passed on.

I apologize for making this argument to those who've heard me make it all before. I am one of the more predictable of Althouse commentators. My response to everything is some combination of anarchism and Georgism. But then again, it seems to me that the concerns of most people who wrangle over politics are various flavors of the same mess of pottage, and are indicted by this observation of Thoreau: "There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root."

Lead crystal contains 22% to 35% lead. <---100% of fact. I saw this on "Modern Wonders," so that means it's indisputable. The breezed over the explanation about how lead becomes transparent by saying at high temperature there's molecular change. I thought that part was chincy.

Relax don't do itWhen you want to go to itRelax don't do itWhen you want to comeRelax don't do itWhen you want to comeWhen you want to come

Relax don't do itWhen you want to to go to itRelax don't do itWhen you want to comeRelax don't do itWhen you want to suck to itRelax don't do itWhen you want to comeCome-oh oh oh(Relax, Frankie Goes to Hollywood)